Memeorandum

September 06, 2006

NY Times Editors Go Insane

The Valerie Plame case has claimed another victim - the editors of the NY Times have lost their minds.

Their latest editorial calls on Special Counsel Fitzgerald to put or or shut up [in a "WHILE THE TIMES PASSES THE TIME" update, we exhort the Times to do the same]:

Last week, it was reported that Richard Armitage, then deputy
secretary of state, was the first to mention Valerie Wilson to Mr.
Novak, and that the federal prosecutor knew this more than two and a
half years ago.
The revelation tells us something
important. But, unfortunately, it is not the answer to the central
question in the investigation — whether there was an organized attempt
by the White House to use Mrs. Wilson to discredit or punish her
husband, Joseph Wilson.

...

Mr. Armitage, a White House outsider, would be an odd participant in
such a plot. He is said to have learned from a State Department memo
that Mrs. Wilson had recommended sending her husband to check the Niger
story since he had worked there as a diplomat. The memo was prepared
for Mr. Cheney, who was eager to prove that there was an Iraqi nuclear
weapons program and to silence critics.

It’s conceivable that
Patrick Fitzgerald, the federal prosecutor, has evidence that suggests
the information in the memo was used in some illegal manner. Or his
investigators may have learned something troubling about the second,
unknown, source cited in Mr. Novak’s column, or about some other
illegal activity. But whatever it is needs to be made public. The
Armitage story is mainly a reminder that this investigation has gone on
too long.

...It’s time for Mr. Fitzgerald to provide answers or admit that this investigation has run its course.

Oh, stop - Labor Day officially kicked off the fall election season so now the Times wants Fitzgerald to hand a gift to one party or the other? Why couldn't they have written this editorial in mid-June following the All-Clear For Karl announcement? It is not as if the Armitage story is driving this, since, as the Times noted, "In recent months... Mr. Armitage’s role had become clear to many".

Look, if Fitzgerald is about to indict someone, fine, bring it on (pigs may fly, IMHO). But does the Times really expect him to send out a press release saying "I am ever-so-close to some Really Big Indictments, but I'm Not Quite There"? Republicans would howl, and rightly so.

Or should the Special Counsel stage an "ally-ally-in-come free" press conference sometime soon? Dems will wonder why that couldn't have waited until after the election; some will wonder why Fitzgerald could not have been a bit more forthcoming in the fall of 2004, when news that Libby and Rove were under the microscope might have swung the election.

Well. The Times has certainly handed the Bush Administration a gift. With the NY Times providing cover, shouldn't AG Gonzalez ask Fitzgerald for an update on his status and plans? The Public Wants To Know!

And if the prognosis is grim for Cheney et al (it's not), then the Attorney general can exhort Fitzgerald to carry on and maintain his no-leak procedures.

But if the news is good for the Administration, will the Times object to a well-informed highly placed source passing that news along? How could they?

This editorial is absurd - the Times will just have to wait with the rest of us for this investigation to fizzle out under its own lack of evidence.

BUT WHILE WE WAIT: Doug Johnston of the Times thought it was over in June:

The decision to decline a
prosecution in Mr. Rove's case effectively ends the active
investigative phase of Mr. Fitzgerald's inquiry because Mr. Rove was
the only person known to still be under active scrutiny.

With Rove's situation resolved, the broader leak investigation is
probably over, according to a source briefed on the status of the case.
Fitzgerald does not appear to be pursuing criminal charges against
former State Department official Richard L. Armitage, who is believed
to have discussed the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame with at
least one reporter, according to the source.

"I'm not worried about my situation," Armitage said last night on the Charlie Rose television show.

A
source briefed on the case said that the activities of Vice President
Cheney and his aides were a key focus of the investigation, and that
Cheney was not considered a target or primary subject of the
investigation and is not likely to become one. There are no other
outstanding issues to be investigated, the source said, though new ones
could emerge as Fitzgerald continues to prosecute I. Lewis "Scooter"
Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, on charges of lying to
investigators and a grand jury.

The deeply committed still hold out hope that Libby will strike a deal to rat out Cheney before Bush delivers a pardon; for the rest of us, this is a Dead Case Walking.

ERRATA: Here are some confidence-undermining points leaving one to wonder if the Times has followed this case:

It’s conceivable that Patrick Fitzgerald, the federal prosecutor, has
evidence that suggests the information in the memo was used in some
illegal manner. Or his investigators may have learned something
troubling about the second, unknown, source cited in Mr. Novak’s
column, or about some other illegal activity.

The "second, unknown source"? Are they talking about Karl Rove, who has been identified in court filings and by Bob Novak himself? I am at sea - all we know about Armitage is that several reporters have sources saying he was the leaker; neither Armitage nor Novak has confirmed that. On the other hand, Novak has identified Rove. So don't we "know" Rove is involved?

A second annoying bit of text is here:

A former diplomat, Mr. Wilson debunked the claim that Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium from Niger to make nuclear weapons.

Well, he debunked the claim that Saddam had succeeded in buying uranium from Niger. As to the attempt, Christopher Hitchens has been pounding the table about the 1999 trip to Niger by Saddam's nuclear ambassador.

Finally, the Times is factually challenged here (emphasis added):

Mr. Armitage, a White House outsider, would be an odd participant in
such a plot. He is said to have learned from a State Department memo
that Mrs. Wilson had recommended sending her husband to check the Niger
story since he had worked there as a diplomat. The memo was prepared
for Mr. Cheney, who was eager to prove that there was an Iraqi nuclear
weapons program and to silence critics.

No, the memo was prepared at the request of Marc Grossman of State in response to questions from Libby (and by extension, Cheney); Mr. Grossman wanted a review of the State Department and INR role in the Wilson trip and the Niger-uranium reporting. As best I know, neither Cheney nor Libby ever saw the memo, although Libby had a meeting with Grossman during which he was orally advised of its contents.

WHILE THE TIMES PASSES THE TIME: While the Times waits for an accounting from Special Counsel Fitzgerald, perhaps they could deliver a bit of an accounting themselves:

(1) How did the Times fail to disclose, as part of the July 6 Wilson
op-ed, that Wilson was working for the Kerry campaign and had changed
the "debunked the forgery" story reported by Nick Kristof? Wouldn't
that have been valuable to readers attempting to assess his credibility?

2. In all their fulminating about investigating the leak, did the
Times ever grill Nick Kristof as to whether Wilson or his wife spilled
the beans to Nick? They all had breakfast together while Joe told his story, so this is not exactly a longshot.

And since we are talking about both a criminal and civil suit,
doesn't the public have a right to a bit of a hint as to just how deep
the BS is running here? (Aside - Yes, this strikes to the soul of the Times' "Protect our
sources" religion, but I'll ask anyway)

3. Why did Times editors lie about just what it was Judy Miller was
protecting when she went to jail? Here is Bill Keller:

TERENCE SMITH: Now, the prosecutor made the point in
court that not only does he know the identity of Judy Miller's source,
that he -- that the source has signed a waiver of confidentiality, in
which case, what is Judy Miller defending?

BILL KELLER: I don't know whether the special prosecutor knows the
identity of her source. I do know this: that Judy Miller made an
absolute pledge to her source that she would not reveal his name or the
substance of their conversation, and to this point, she has received no
waiver or release that she regards as freely given anyway from that
source.

Fitzgerald had delivered a subpoena ordering Ms. Miller to describe her contacts with one person, I. Lewis Libby; Times management had reviewed the case with Ms. Miller and her attorneys. Even if they had not been apprised of his name, surely they understood that there was a name, and just one - the WaPo understood, as did their readers.

Now, when she testified Ms. Miller certainly gave the impression that she had discussed Ms. Plame with more people than just Libby, so she may have been in jail to protect them (that was my Official Editorial Speculation last summer, anyway). But that is hardly what Bill Keller is discussing here.

Comments

The Times telling Fitz to "Put up or shut up" can be viewed two ways. A call for Fitz to drop the whole thing if he has nothing, or (more typical of the NYT) "Dammit Fitz, our side has an election coming up and we need your help. Accuse, indict, do pressers. It doesn't have to be based on fact. Make it the standard October Surprise, then we say never mind in December, after we gain control of congress."

A once-proud institution, now in way over its head and floundering. The cataclysmic tenure of the Pinch-Raines-Keller bunch will be the stuff of bemused post-mortems fifty years from now, no doubt published in a popular medium now beyond the imagination of anyone at the Times. Having hated the dishonest bastards at this rag for the forty-odd years of my adult life, I celebrate their disgraceful decline in a most unsportsmanlike manner. God damn them, and bad luck to them.

The only thing I could think of was the article Novak wrote that said a confidential source at CIA told him Valerie Plame was an analyst. I think it was in the 2nd article he wrote, where he said Armitage was no political gunslinger. I'll go look...

No, the memo was prepared at the request of Marc Grossman of State in response to questions from Libby (and by extension, Cheney);

Regardless, it ought to be obvious from reading it that the subject is not "Valerie Plame," but the more generic Wilson/Niger. Which "muddies" any suggestion the question was a nefarious attempt to generate a known response.

The only thing I could think of was the article Novak wrote that said a confidential source at CIA told him Valerie Plame was an analyst.

Interesting idea, but... per Novak's tell All column, Fitzgerald only grilled him about three Plame related chats, all from before July 14 - Harlow (CIA press flack), Rove, and a source to be named later (now "known" to be Armitage).

That suggests that the unofficial source for the Oct 1 column talked to Novak post July 14 (or at least, kept his role concealed through the investigation.)

So how did Fitzgerald get troubling info about this person, and how did the Times become aware of it?

Well the editors are insane, that's a given, but the fact remains it is way past time for Fitz to sh!t or get off the pot. So, does anyone know what is going on with him or with the Libby court case? When are they due back in court? What motions are due? What do the current revelations do to to or for the Libby defense? Lots of questions ... when will we see some action?

while they're waiting for Fitzgerald, there's a long list of questions they could be answering themselves.

I love that. Off the top of my head I can think of three:

1. How did the Times fail to disclose, as part of the July 6 Wilson op-ed, that Wilson was working for the Kerry campaign and had changed the "debunked the forgery" story reported by Nick Kristof? Wouldn't that have been valuable to readers attempting to assesshis credibility?

2. In all their fulminating about investigating the leak, did the Times ever grill Nick Kristof as to whether Wilson or his wife spilled the beans to Nick?

Seeing as how we are talking about both a criminal and civil suit, doesn't the public have a right to a bit of a hint as to just how deep the BS is running here? (This strikes a tthe core of their "Protect our sources" religion, but I'll ask anyway)

3. Why did Times editors lie about just what it was Judy Miller was protecting when she went to jail? I am short on links, but the Times kept pretending she was protecting the *identity* of her source, which was not so.

Or his investigators may have learned something troubling about the second, unknown, source cited in Mr. Novak’s column

Okay. Reading it as the 2nd unknown source cited in Mr. Novak's column (the 1st one, I assume) they are referring to Rove. Who was technically the 2nd unknown source in Novak's column when it was written. Sloppy writing on their part?

Tom M, she contuned to refuse to testify, if you recall, until Fitz promised not to ask her about other sources.
Her notes indicate she had other sources and apparently so testified.
OTOH (a) she said she didn't recall them when Fitz surprised her by reneging on his pledge and she had no counsel present to object; and(b) Judge Walton who examined the Times documents indicate they contain material which may impeach her depending on how she testifies at trial.

1. Who set up Josh Marshall with Rocco Martino and was this part of a French intel operation?

2. If Karl Rove is such a smart operative, why didn't he have the smarts to attach the tag "Kerry campaign advisor" to Wilson's name in every Republican comment about the case once that role became known?

""OTOH (a) she said she didn't recall them when Fitz surprised her by reneging on his pledge and she had no counsel present to object;...""

IMO there are two storylines about the journalists that have been not covered as they deserve:

1. The lame excuses they leaked about the type and amount of waivers Miller and Cooper leaked they needed, creating the impression that the difficulty was with Rove and Libby, and heightening the case's intrigue. Turns out they were negotiating to not spill the beans on others than Rove and Libby.

2. Novak's admission that two sources told him not to print about Mrs. Wilson - but he did so anyway.

""...and(b) Judge Walton who examined the Times documents indicate they contain material which may impeach her depending on how she testifies at trial."

Oh, goodness. This is over. Is the grand jury even meeting on this still, it Fitz still in DC or back in Chicago. He's probably just let open for anything new until Libby's trial. Plus if he ends it now he'll have an army of angry moonbats after him.

I thought we established some time back that Fitzgerald was being supervised by Public Domain so I guess we should assume that AG Gonzalez already has the answer as to the status of Fitzgerald's investigation via these pieces in the Times and Post.

Javani, I correvtly described the Judge's ruling respecting Miller. The situation re Cooper is worse for the prosecution. The judge said of the documents in Times' possession, that they make Cooper's testimony no matter how he testifies at trial.

Syl,Judy was blindsided by Fitz. He asked her about a conversation EARLIER than the one he'd been focusing on ..Remember she didn't even have those notes with her at the gj so she obviously hadn't reviewed them before testifying and he asked her about other sources when he had promised her he would not.

Yes, the dance about the waiver from Libby was particularly revolting though.

Look, it's not as if the Times hasn't always been upfront regarding where it's coming from. See right there? "All the news that fits, we print." It's not their fault if you thought that meant news that fit in the available SPACE.

Point No. 2, that Wilson's wife was an undercover agent, has been proved false even to the willfully blind since Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald announced the conclusion to his pointless investigation last year, saying that Plame's employment with the CIA was not undercover, but merely "classified."

Everything is "classified" at the CIA. They have no idea when 19 terrorists are about to hijack commercial aircraft and slaughter 3,000 Americans, but the CIA is very good at play-acting James Bond spy games.

How covert was Valerie Plame at the CIA? Her top-secret code name was "Valerie Plame."

Thus, as recently as January of this year, a New York Times editorial said the issue of the "leak" about Wilson's wife, whom the Times called "a covert CIA operative whose identity was leaked" (two strikes already), concerned "whether the White House was using this information in an attempt to silence Mrs. Wilson's husband, a critic of the Iraq invasion."

Wilson was more precise about the White House "leaker," variously naming Karl Rove, Lewis Libby and Dick Cheney as the source. He even described "a meeting in the suite of offices that the vice president occupies, chaired by either the vice president or Mr. Libby," where, Wilson said, the decision was made to destroy him.

(If the secret plan hatched in the vice president's office was to send evil spirits to enter Wilson's body and make him act like a fool, the plan worked brilliantly.)

"Maybe she was protecting the identity of her source and it wasn't Libby"
Very intriguing indeed!
Kate:
I agree the fat lady is singing and this case is over. However the BMOC Fitz has requested a closed private conference on what documents can be used in the Libby trial. He is afraid to reveal classified info publicly.

I'm trying to recall something. When documentation was made public respecting the sealed pleadings Fitz made to the Miller court, some remained classified, didn't they? If so , it is possible he disclosed Armitage's confession. If not, it is certain he didn't.

To pick up on one of Coulter's points, I have always said (taking my cue from Dr. Johnson or Churchill or someone) that the only prayer I have ever offered up to the Almighty is that my adversary be made to appear ridiculous. Finally, in the case of the whey-faced buffoon Wilson, my prayer has been answered. Hallelujah and Excelsior!

"I agree the fat lady is singing and this case is over. However the BMOC Fitz has requested a closed private conference on what documents can be used in the Libby trial. He is afraid to reveal classified info publicly."

"The (Armitage) revelation tells us something important. But, unfortunately, it is not the answer to the central question in the investigation — whether there was an organized attempt by the White House to use Mrs. Wilson to discredit or punish her husband, Joseph Wilson. "

Is an "organized" act more palatable than a conspiracy?? Sort of like the sound of conspiracy, personally.

The prosecution will argue that Libby lied in his recollections of conversations made 4-8 months previous by relying on the 2 year old memories of those same conversations of Miller and Cooper.

The prosecution will argue that Miller's two-year old recollection of a conversation should be trusted more than Libby's despite the fact she can't remember who told her "Valerie Flame" a few weeks before that name became famous.

The prosecution will argue that Cooper's two-year old recollection should be trusted more than Libby's despite the fact in a similar conversation with Karl Rove Cooper testified welfare reform was not discussed, he later sees notes that he indeed was working on the subject around that time, and Rove has a contemporaneous e-mail stating Cooper initiated the call on welfare reform.

And as for Russert, the prosecution is going to win on that rambling block of Libby testimony excerpted in the complaint from his angry call to Russert and we have Russert not stating clearly that Joe's wife was not discussed? And Libby is pinning the story on a journalist he is not friendly with?

Unfortunately the Armitage "revelation" tells us everything we need to know. Mostly "everybody knew it" via Andrea Mitchell, and there was no OVP smear operation, because, well, nobody can find one hint of a clue that one existed.

When documentation was made public respecting the sealed pleadings Fitz made to the Miller court, some remained classified, didn't they? If so , it is possible he disclosed Armitage's confession. If not, it is certain he didn't.

That is making me think of the famous eight redacted pages from the Tatel (and two others) opinion that eventually landed Judy Miller in jail.

IIRC, it was eight pages of secret grand jury testimony, but not all ws released.

If I were I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and every news outlet was saying this was all over, a waste of time, and we can go onto other, more important things, I'd have a screaming fit. Since he is still under indictment, a trial has been set, and if convicted, he goes to jail.

I know I am a lone soldier (been before), but like a blurb said many months ago...there was no worry about Rove being indicted because Libby's team had done a good job of getting the unknown facts out there, the stuff Fitz or the FBI didn't know, want to know, or were mislead about....(DWILKERS and Herbie, where are you?) ...I think part 2 of the investigation commenced after a certain filing and a Judges ruling.

The Washington Post which waited 2 and 1/2 years to correct Pincus' story pimping Wilson's lies and the New York Times behaved at least as badly as the publications you referenced. As for your criticism of Libby's behavior--you add insult to injury for if you'd studied the case as deeply as I have you'd realize it is no more solidly grounded than Fitzgerald's investigation and no more fair than the media's coverage of the case.

As for the apology to Rove, that is a nice first step. But Libby and the President deserve them, too. The media megaphoned Ambassador Munchausen's easily proven false fairytale as if it were true at a critical moment in history undercutting for fun or politics the trust the people need to have in their leader during war.

Your readers are not as stupid as you think we are. Which is why in increasing numbers we no longer subscribe to your papers or pay any attention to what you report.Rather and his TANG memo scandal, the Koran flushing story, the Jenin Massacre, the Qana massacre, etc., etc. are fresh in our minds and the Post's and NYT's backstroking will not make us easily forget this latest journalistic outrage.

...Keep in mind that the story broke on Saturday, Aug. 27, The Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune editorialized on the matter on Sept. 1, five days later, the Los Angeles Times ran its editorial on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, the New York Times finally weighed in. Were the Times' editorial writers doing extensive research and crafting a masterful editorial? Nope.

In its editorial titled "Time for Answers," after identifying Valerie Plame as a "covert C.I.A. agent" the Times writes: "The revelation tells us something important. But, unfortunately, it is not the answer to the central question in the investigation -- whether there was an organized attempt by the White House to use Mrs. Wilson to discredit or punish her husband, Joseph Wilson. A former diplomat, Mr. Wilson debunked the claim that Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium from Niger to make nuclear weapons."

Yes, it's time for answers -- from the Times.

Well one thing is for sure...the left smeared and the NYT's smeared one of their own, and yet the big boys at the fricken NYT's did exactly what they accused Judy Miller of doing...remember, as Wilson was being escorted through OLD GREY and CRUSTY HALLS in preparation of his OP-ED Opus, a reporter remarked...

"So you are the one that turned this paper around" (or words to that effect)

Oh boy, the investment in that guy. What a HUGE embarrassment...don't the shareholders have any say?

**** George Bush wants to pardon Scooter Libby, it is important that he know that there will be a price to be paid for doing so, and that price increases as the truth spreads. We need 650 readers to give $100 each in order to help us to make that happen. That’s less than 1% of the average readership of this blog on any given weekday. This is an important story both for the blogosphere and the country to get right, and we need your help to do that.****

It appears that the FDL book effort is actually a fundraiser!!!! I hope joe and Val don't mind that their website isn't mentioned....

***** Colin Powell remains intensely bitter and angry about his UN Security Council Speech, during which he presented the case for war. After it became clear that much of his speech was wrong, he refused to have anything to do with CIA director George Tenet. "It's annoying to me," Powell told the authors. "Everybody focuses on my presentation....Well the same goddamn case was presented to the U.S. Senate and the Congress and they voted for [Bush's Iraq] resolution....Why aren't they outraged....The same case was presented to the President. Why isn'' the President outraged? It's always, 'Gee, Powell, you made this speech to the UN.'"****

Intensely bitter!!!!!! Any motive for anything here? On the other hand, Cornball and Izzy are the "reporters."

The more I think about this, the more ridiculous it becomes. Here we have Scooter Libby indicted for Perjury and obstruction disagreeing with reporters.

What did he obstruct? It couldn't have been the leak case. Fitz already knew that was Armitage. The only thing he could have obstructed was a witch hunt to punish the Whitehouse, for a supposed "outing" in "revenge" that wasn't. How much lower could politics go? I want to see that referal letter. This thing stinks, bigtime.

I think Val was a source for the reporters. She would fit the whistleblower category that Fitz seems to like. Wilson wouldn't.

(Nevermind the fact if I'm right they violated the whistleblower law and shouldn't have been afforded protection to begin with, Fitz sees a crime and he and the judge found a way to punish the intimidation of a noble whistleblower...Plame.)

Tatel then issued a statement that made it seem as if the security breach that occurred was on a scale of releasing Manhattan Project blueprints.

My questions are:

1. Who supplied Fitz with the information he passed to Tatel?
2. What could have been so alarming to Tatel that he used the language that he did?
3. Were the statements made in Fitz’s brief accurate, or were they part of the myth as advanced by Joe and Val?

If any of the senior grade Plameoligists care to site the exact phrasing of Tatel’s reaction, it would be helpful.

Some played because they had nothing to lose; others played because they had everything to lose; and even outsiders played because what they said might change the odds. Some played for power, others for revenge; and still others played just to play. They bet like government was just a game and the people of America so many casino chips.

Besides spooks, mandarins, gumshoes, and political hacks, even journalists played the game, echoing and amplifying misrepresentation with no personal price to pay. Every bet on the table was a side game, just like Craps, where bettors don’t give a damn who rolls the dice, because their game stands alone. Inside the beltway, each roll changed the game, adding new diplomatic doublespeak, charged with nuance, innuendo, bafflegab, and dissembling.

Fortunately, responsible journalism came from a distance, from one small corner of the Internet where the outcome of the game didn’t matter but the outcome for the world did. There, on the Just One Minute blog of Tom Maguire, independent commenters coalesced into a small army of Davids who tracked, checked, and verified intricate chronologies of published articles, events, legal testimony, and conjecture, teasing apart insight from fuzzy thinking, bad reporting, omitted detail, and out-and-out lies.

From time to time, people and events test the process of government. Read how, in a sea of uncertainty, concerted effort can help good sense to prevail.

Powell has no reason to be bitter. He had his moment in the sun. He also had his chance to run for the presidency but family concerns kept him out of the race. He shouldn't let his disappointment and bitterness affect how he reponds to wrongdoing at the State Dept. He shouldn't have kept quiet and let Libby twist in the wind. He should have done a better job as Secretary of State.

O/T: Has anyone been following the flak over the 2 part mini series ABC is going to show about 9/11? My goodness, the democrats are in a tizzy. No documentary should include inaccuracies, etc. While they had Michael Moore sitting next to the former President of the US at the DNC convention. ::grin:: Gotta love'em.

"What did he obstruct? It couldn't have been the leak case. Fitz already knew that was Armitage. The only thing he could have obstructed was a witch hunt to punish the Whitehouse, for a supposed "outing" in "revenge" that wasn't. How much lower could politics go? I want to see that referal letter. This thing stinks, bigtime."

What is odd is that Fitz appeared to have already known about Armitage prior to at least investigating Libby. So your question of exactly what did Libby obstruct is a good question and exactly what did Libby lie about? The latest I got was that Libby's statements about Russert while Russert denied having a conversation with Libby. Plus Libby's comments about Russert was "out of the norm" that raised a flag with FBI. Did FBI find any evidence that Libby lied? Looks like what FBI found was a "He said, somebody else said something else" type of evidence. Strong enough to get Libby convicted? No.

If that CIA referral letter turned out to be something real, then we all have to eat crow. What are the odds that the CIA referral letter turned out to be a non-story?

I hope that ABC's 9/11 movie will NOT be redacted to satisfy the Clintonistas. Even Bush was shown to have some responsibility in it and Bush hasn't objected anything about this movie.

What great honor and integrity Bush and his people have. If this movie was aired the first time in year 2010, would Bush object to it? I don't think so. He'll still have enough integrity to not object to it.

O/T: Has anyone been following the flak over the 2 part mini series ABC is going to show about 9/11? My goodness, the democrats are in a tizzy. No documentary should include inaccuracies, etc. While they had Michael Moore sitting next to the former President of the US at the DNC convention. ::grin:: Gotta love'em.

Hilarious.
This seems to be the most important thing on the left since Steven Colbert's Brave Performance.

Thanks, Sue! Think Tom McGuire pointed out in Tatel's rulings that disproved Plame's status as covert. I agree with Coulter's statement about everything at CIA being classified. Just that classified simply means that they have some level of security classification.

It does not mean that all of them are NOC and/or covert.

But what's puzzling is that Judge Walton (at least) ruled against Libby read access to this CIA referral letter. Why? What's in it that's preventing Libby and his lawyers access from it if Plame was proven to not be covert? Armitage?

SunnyDay, when I read that part about Powell's lowest day, I wondered why. Because everything he covered in that speech turned out to be true so far, even with the latest (Aug 30, 2006) jveritas translations.

Sue, one fact that the Judge ruled against allowing Libby full read access to this letter is that Libby or his lawyers lacked sufficient security clearances. If he had it while working for Cheney, he lost it the day of his resignation.

The mainstream media won't apologize for its part in hyping this manufactured scandal, and they sure won't inform their viewers about the facts (which will let the left go on shilling their fantasies about Rove & Co).

We need to help the non-blog-reading public to become informed. How, exactly, I'm not sure, but some papers will print letters to the editor... won't they?

Once again I am just bewildered by the tendency of both Presidents Bush to be far too gentlemanly with their adversaries and with those who have let them down horribly. How could Bush Sr. be so gracious to that snake Teddy Kennedy after the way he savaged his son? And in the case of Dubya, we get stuff like "you're doin' a great job, Brownie." More important, we get his spirited defense of George Tenet in the wake of 9/11, and his subsequent presentation to Tenet of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I think almost all past presidents of both parties, under the circumstances, would have quietly requested Tenet's resignation a decent interval after 9/11, made some kind remarks at his retirement ceremony, and left the rest to history. Has any man ever failed in his job more catastrophically than George Tenet?

All of this is prelude to reiterating my theory about what was in Tenet's follow-up to the referral. I think he asked Fitz to investigate whether there was a White House conspiracy to punish Wilson unlawfully, and that is what Fitz has been pursuing all along. And that is why the Armitage leak was essentially irrelevant to him.

Seriously though. We really aren't supposed to remember Clinton's presidency, except to remember a booming economy, peace, and how the world just loooooved us and him.
Those were the glorious, memorable moments in our 8 year Vacation from History (h/t the Anchoress)

The memo was prepared for Mr. Cheney, who was eager to prove that there was an Iraqi nuclear weapons program and to silence critics.

Whoa, whoa, hold on a minute. If Cheney was making so many public speeches talking about the threat posed by maintaining the status quo with Saddam, isn't that a public dicussion and precisely the opposite of silencing critics?

What does the NY Times know about Wilson that everyone does not? Was the Times planning to run a series of Op/Ed pieces by Joe Wilson discussing his super secret sources that would reveal all about the Iraq Strategy Group?

Novak didn't write the column that the White House would have preferred, one where Wilson's claims about Niger are challenged via other high level government sources. Novak didn't write that column about Joe Wilson because it wasn't the White House that was communicating that message to Novak. The only person talking to Novak about Plame was Armitage.

We now know that the White House was confirming information with Novak, but Novak still wasn't writing a column about what was known about Iraq/Niger connections. Novak was writing a piece about how Wilson's belief that his Niger mission was so important yet George Tenant, point man on Iraq intelligence for the White House, didn't even know about Joe Wilson's assignment. You might say that Tenant didn't think the trip was necessary, though, White House critics would *cough* Valerie.

Certainly, in review, we know that the leak of Plame's identity ended the conversation right there. Nothing has been reported about since. No court proceedings, no discussions, no Wilson VIP trips to Vegas for Yearly Kos, no, it most definitely silenced critics as the NY Times says Cheney intended.

Or maybe the NY Times really is insane. Because I'm fairly certain that silencing critics is the very last thing that Cheney has ever done in his political career. But those adept historians at the Times would know.